Move your multimedia entertainment around the house

Our Verdict

Pros

Cons

No wireless option; No Homeplug adapter built in

As ever more TV and other media finds its way into the home from the internet and on to a PC, finding a means to display stored video files on your TV screen and other screens in the home is essential.

And that means streaming video (and music, and pictures) around a home network to be viewed on PCs and TVs alike.

For this you need a computer to download, store and stream the media, a data connection, and a device to extract the streamed files and display them on the TV using conventional AV connections - unless you are going to dedicate an extra PC in the living room next to the TV. That means a digital media adapter that actively gets the files to watch or listen to from the storage PC and displays them on the TV screen.

ZyXEL's DMA1000 digital media adapter (ZyXEL calls it a media streamer but it doesn't really do the streaming) is the size of a paperback book and it connects to a wired network using CAT5/RJ45 cables.

This gives the DMA1000 an advantage when it comes to playing high data rate files such as HDTV footage; a cable carries data at a faster rate and with greater reliability than any wireless connection.